Crang, M. Flexible and fixed times working in the academy (2007) Environment and Planning A, 39 (3), pp. 509-514. Cited 16 times, is probably as good a place as any to start looking for literature that relates to gender in academia.

I have no affiliation with this work, but I am a woman working in geography and it struck a chord with me.

Thank you Kate, You are the first person answering the question which I had repeatedly posted for a while. I am just curious what scholars think of 'themselves' and whether the academia turned the projector ever to 'itself' to study gender differences.I was wondering whether 'theorising' is really under the domain of our male colleagues as it is being said!. Thanks again.

Dear Leyla,

I don't think that male scholars are more succesful in theory building skills. Maybe they can find more time than their female counterparts in order to study :). In my opinion brain is brain, no matter it is female or male.

Paper below may be helpful. It is about the performance of PhD Students and advisors gender sameness and diference and academic productivty. As far as I understand same gender situation of PhD student and advisor increase academic productivity but no evidence that males are more productive than females.

Goldstein, Elyse, "Effect of same-sex and cross-sex role models on the subsequent academic productivity of scholars."American Psychologist, Vol 34(5), May 1979, 407-410.

Note: I used to watch your TV show "High Heels" once upon a time. I have to say that it was very high quality.

Thank you Ufuk;

There again, in High Heels, despite the fact that most of the audience was positive, a woman dealing with political satire attracted some stir in negative sense. Later I read about the expectations of audiences and the differences between male and female humorists which was correlating with my experiences. Therefore I would like to know about the different "inferences" of scholars based on their gender.There must be some differences in 'perception' conceptualising and theorising, I thought. Thank you very much for your input though. My research and studies here are based on the role of humor in second language acquisition, so I am trying to academically justify what I was doing all those years in media :)

Deal Leyla, what you were doing in "High Heels" was very successful in my opinion. Sense of humor can be very different according to gender differences esp. in Turkey. We feel very free about choosing words in our jokes if there is no female in the room. So, expectations of audiences and style preferences of humorist in terms of gender may definitely different. I wish you good luck!!

This is slightly 'off-topic' to your area of interest Leyla, but I think there may be a temporal aspect to your question, as academia has changed over time. Peter Higgs (who theorised the existence of the Higgs bosun many years ago, and only now has had his theory proved empirically through the efforts of a great many people), recently commented that he would not be considered productive enough in today's academia (certainly in the UK or the USA). The current emphasis on 'productivity' (number of peer-reviewed papers published, grants awarded, non-academic impact achieved) is driving academics to work longer and longer hours, and this is not something that many women (certainly once they have children) are able to maintain, and there is a risk they will fall behind again in career terms. Frankly, I don't think it should be maintained. Meeting high productivity expectations is not at all the same as producing useful advances to knowledge, and the working hours required destroys relationships. I hope you find the material that you are looking for.

Thank you Ufuk and Kate. As to being off topic, you might be righ Kaet. But that is how I corelate the topics and come to an idea of enhancing my research Just to give an example; my question of "the sense of humor in animals", and the answers I got led me to the brain activity by humor exposure, from there to interesting studies about humor both in social and neuroscience. The relation between dopamine and second language acquisition seems to be far but I found a waythrough studies to connect them. How human brain functions is very important also for social scince, I think, And studies show interesting connnection between social science and neuroscience in that matter. Therefore, different'infereneces' between academic brains based on genders is not exactly my topic but,I guess, not so far away. Thank you for your insightful and helpful answer.

Based on my experiences, and some of the literature that has passed my desk, I think there probably are difference inferences between academic brains that has some correlation with gender. Getting back to the influence of time, I think in part this is because male academics of a certain age have been conditioned/trained in a male environment, in which positivist theories held sway (in the sciences). Those coming along a little later were exposed to other social influences, as the women had more rights, and worked outside the home more. Then feminist theorising appeared, and qualitative methods and theories. These challenge the 'older' way of doing theory. Women (generalising) also don't really want to work 24/7 while doing a PhD and several years of post-doctoral research. This doesn't go down very well with academics (men and women, but more often men) who did it the 24/7 way and think it is the right way (or have some kind of attitude 'we suffered so you should too'). I don't do 'biological' or neuroscience work, but from sociology I have borrowed the morphogenetic approach of Margaret Archer, which explains the intertwining of structure and agency that affects the factors that influence institutional evolution. As individuals we have agency, but we deploy that agency within social structures. We can influence those structures, but they also influence us in a continuous iterative process. If there is evidence that academics (of either gender) do evaluate the value of one another's work along gender stereotypes that undervalue the contributions of women (some women may be derogatory about men's work 'because' they are men), there are some structuring explanations as well as explanations that relate to individual agency (where I'm sure neuroscience has much to add...). Good luck with your investigations!

I wish we could work on this together. Apparently this is again nature or nurture issue. Thank you very much for you inspiring approach Kate.

you're welcome! It would be very interesting but quite a long way from my current field i think (transport geography mostly). My first degree was Philosophy with English Literature though...

You've reminded me that Shakespeare's The Tempest is an interesting discourse on nature versus nurture...

And you reminded me of my other favourite disciplines, geography, especially history of geography and meteorology (bio-meteorology). If some research can prove that there is life after life :) I am still hoping to develop my self in those areas.

That was exactly the issue I was wondering Vinita.I do not doubt the comptenece of women in academia,however,there might be some"'inferencial"differences in interpreting or analysing data, especially in qualitative research where the values of researchers might play a role.If I had the imginary opportunity to run a study, I would, for example, assign professors of same discipline with the same resarch results and let them interpret it. There again it would probably be difficult to relate the difference to genders due to other variables. Still, I am wondering whether there would be a huge difference. If science can measure many differeneces between male and female ways of thinking,it might be possible to find out the differences in academic thinking as well. Only, I am afraid, scholars are too busy to carry out an experiment about and around themselves.

I would agree with you Leyla that academics consider themselves to be too busy to be part of experiments themselves. There may also be a tinge of anxiety about having the spotlight turned on themselves! I spent 18 months on a project which was trying to develop a Virtual Research Environment that used semantic web technologies to support interdisciplinary working. Our case study groups were generally not good at committing themselves to using the VRE for the length of time required, even though they (or the lead investigators) had signed the groups up to participate!

Leyla, I have just discovered there is something called humor theory - you probably know this already, but maybe there is something in it for you, if you haven't already discovered it: https://www.academia.edu/477378/Humor_Theories_and_the_Physiological_Benefits_of_Laughter

Thank you very much Kate. There is absolutely something in it :) I had not had the chance to look at it. Many thanks,

Thanyou Leyla and Kate, you do need to work on this area, its of the utmost importance. Us women are facing multiple fronts, jobs, children, homes as well as research. I am pretty sure that I work more than my male counterparts but they are able to produce more because they don't have to worry about the other "irrelevant stuff" like homework and stuff. An that leads to their thinking that they are more productive thus dedicated.

Leyla, A couple of papers you might like to look at:

Probert, B. (2005). ‘I just couldn’t fit it in’: Gender and unequal outcomes in academic careers. Gender, Work & Organization, 12(1), 50-72. (Cited by 168)

This paper concluded that 'discrimination or bias in appointments, promotions and workloads were not significant in explaining men's domination of the senior levels.'... 'it also pointed to a quite particular explanation for the failure of women to progress to Level D (associate professor/reader) which involved other more general demographic changes — particularly, high rates of separation and divorce, far higher rates of partnering among men than women and the impact of older children's needs.'

Tesch, B. J., Wood, H. M., Helwig, A. L., & Nattinger, A. B. (1995). Promotion of women physicians in academic medicine. JAMA: the journal of the American Medical Association, 273(13), 1022-1025. (Cited by 257)

This paper concluded that: 'Women physician medical school faculty are promoted more slowly than men. Gender differences in rank achieved are not explained by productivity or by differential attrition from academic medicine.'

Good luck with your broad and interesting search for new knowledge!

Thank you very much Melissa.I think it is also interesting that no 'male' scholar answered this question so far :)

There are many renowned female scholars and their work is surpassing many males in the field but its somewhere at the back of our mind that females are less contributing in society

I am sure Attia, That's why I would like to know how "academia" evaluates female work. Is academia biased too? Do male scholars have a better chance to publish their articles for instance? I just wanted to know whether there has been a study carried out related this topic.

O.K. Let me be the first to dare entering this discussion. Male scholars are NOT considered more accountable, efficient or reputable than females. I wonder why even such a question should be discussed. I think these days there is a new wave of fever among female scientists to prove that they do equally as male scientists while no one doubts it. It's everywhere. In JAMA pediatrics, the editor writes about the increased number of female editors or authors. Nature publishes a nonsense correspondence from someone explaining the same situation; the correspondence is so absurd that the editors apologize the readers for such a piece of work being published in the Nature. The last but not the least, Science says that females boycott a conference because of the scarcity of the female executive board member in the conference. Why would we even discuss a question which in my idea is a wrong question. It's comparing apples and oranges. In the realm of science, the one who has something to offer will be heard. Of course, there are some natural preferences that cannot be changed but this is an extremely minor item which should not affect the whole concept of science.

Thank you Samad, for being here. When I was growing up, my family had consisted of many power women, I had never ever understood the reason and meaning of "feminism". Looking at my very academic but "soft at home" father, I rather thought 'masculinism' should be discussed :) However, growing up and living in many different environments/countries, I started to realise that some women in some countries/environments and fields are being let's say disadvantaged. Yes, apples and oranges, I like that :) But if see produce shops rather (academia) sell an offer oranges, although apples are also tasty and healthy :) we start to think for sure. what's wrong with apples? Are they not 'good enough' ? I just wanted to know. How can science be excluded of a general racial and gender discrimination, which we might be still dealing with?

Dear @Leyla, gender bias is an emerging issue. 

This webinar is fine - Learn to spot and address unconscious gender bias!

For women in academia, unconscious gender bias can affect career progression opportunities and even how well manuscripts are received...

Hear all about what publishers like Elsevier are doing to reduce the effect of unconscious gender bias in order to make the publishing process fairer and more equitable for all. In the course of this webinar, you’ll have the opportunity to ask the speakers questions...

https://www.elsevier.com/authors-update/story/publishing-trends/join-our-free-webinar-on-gender-bias-in-academic-publishing

Dear colleague,

Before few hours I registered in the free webinar mentioned by Dr.Ljubomir Jacić, so that means, we as male researchers fully support female researchers.

Regards, Emad

Mid-career female academics whose research is disrupted by motherhood or other caring commitments should be eligible for a bespoke grant scheme to help revive their professorial aspirations...

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/mid-career-female-researchers-need-bespoke-research-grants?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial-daily

An interesting research.

Conferences suffer from male-dominated ‘question and manswer’ sessions at both in-person and virtual events, even if they have a good gender balance. Researchers observed a four-day online bioinformatics conference and found that ‘senior men’ (older than 35 years) asked, on average, 9.3 more questions than a junior woman, while senior women asked just 2.3 more questions than a junior man. Possible solutions are more time for question and answer sessions, giving the first query opportunity to a junior woman or taking a short break after the talk to allow the audience to formulate their ideas...

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04241-y

I do think there is an equity in academic media when it comes to Sri Lankan academia. Though, the public acceptance of the female scholars social contribution is some what questionable.

It is only opinion and looking for three feet to the cat, is what is sought without any scientific basis. It seems to me that they go from one extreme to the other; the greatest discrimination comes from the color of the skin, the sexual orientation of the citizens. In science you see how productive the scientist is, whether he is a man or a woman. When I taught chemistry in the 1980s, there were only two women in the classrooms for forty or fifty men; Today this has changed, since more than a third of a classroom is made up of women. In the Nordic countries more than fifty years ago, the concept of "gender" parity was used so that women study mathematics in the same percentage as men; today, after this social experiment, women are not interested in science and engineering professions and that does not mean that there are no brilliant women scientists.